Reunited with Romaine

I would consider myself a hater of romaine lettuce.  First of all, on the lettuce spectrum, it is not even that good for you, as the darker the leaves, the healthier the lettuce.  Second of all, I think it tastes mostly like water, and third of all it just grosses me out! [There is a caveat that romaine lettuce is required for a proper Caesar salad though]

I think the gross factor can be explained because of the turtles we used to have.  Romaine was the main component of their diet, and I was little and we weren't the best caretakers.  The romaine would get rotten/brown/gross and it was even grosser when it was digested.. . BLEH!

Anyway, I was looking on Orangette and craving a salad because I hadn't had a really good one in forever.  I also didn't want to spend too much money, because I have a friend coming in this weekend and we will probably be spending lots.  That was when I found Summer Romaine Salad with Lime Garlic Dressing.  I would say this has forced me to rethink my snobby stance toward romaine.

To make it, I only had to buy a few ingredients.  The first was romaine lettuce - I went for a giant head of it because it was a great deal for only $.99/head. The stuff in the bag was really pale looking, and the quality of the bunch looked better as well.

I also bought cherry tomatoes, four limes (which were disappointly small at the store), feta and a red onion.

First, you make the dressing.  The recipe calls for three tablespoons and one teaspoon of lime juice, but I just winged it and squeezed in the juice of four limes (which is pretty close to the proper amount).  Before juicing the limes, I roll each one around under my foot to get the juices moving.  It is also an awesome foot massage! I need to get some sort of citrus juicer though, because doing it the old-fashioned way makes a huge mess.

To the lime juice, you add five tablespoons good olive oil (hopefully Costco is considered "good" haha!), a quarter teaspoon minced garlic, and an eighth teaspoon salt.  I omitted the salt.  Then you are supposed to whisk until emulsified -- I shook my little dressing container until it all mixed up.

To make the salad, I first chopped up the lettuce.  Then, slice some cherry tomatoes, and slice the red onion.  I made sure to slice the onion into little slivers because raw onion can be pretty potent.

To assemble, add the tomatoes, onion and feta to the salad and dress.  I also added broccoli and dill to use up some leftover veggies.

This is VERY simple (juicing the limes was as hard as it got) and delicious.  I was a bit wary of using raw onions (especially red, which I find very potent) but with the olive oil/citrus dressing, it wasn't too powerful at all.  The combo of veggies and cheese suited each other very well.

I would caution that if you are not used to olive oil or don't like particularly tangy things, you might not like the dressing as much as you were hoping.  However, I found it refreshing to eat a salad in order to taste the flavors of the salad, instead of eating salad as a means to chow down on some dressing.